[Discuss] Activity (was: The state of the game)

[Josiah Allen]

On 7/11/06, Robert Croson, Jr <robert at arcm.com> wrote:
> On 11 Jul 2006 at 10:04, Timothy Collett wrote:
>
> > On Jul 11, 2006, at 9:55 AM, Robert Croson, Jr wrote:
> > > No matter how hard you try, you *cannot* remove all of a specific
> > > player or group of players' advantages.
> >
> > Of course you can't.  However, you can do your best to mitigate the
> > ones that *can* be mitigated through code.
>
> Provided we can identify the ones that truly need to be mitigated. I am not
> convinced that late-turn moving is a problem, let alone a problem that deserves
> significant effort to be expended to fix.
>
> > Your example is (probably intentionally) absurd--partly because
> > BattleMaster is billed as being *in English*.  Would you like me to
> > provide you another absurd example?
> >
> > "I think that smart people have an advantage in the game, too. They
> > have the unfair ability to come up with better strategies, and write
> > better speeches. These people have the advantage of being able to
> > learn the ins and outs of the game faster, and win more battles
> > because of their superior strategies. Not to mention the fact that
> > player intelligence is a purely OOC factor."
> >
> > Would you like to try to negate the intelligence of the player as a
> > factor, as well?
>
> Why not? We seem to be on the trend of identifying advantages that various
> people have, and then systematically removing them.
>
> > The point here is that BattleMaster *is* billed as a *lightweight*
> > game, where there is *no* significant material advantage to being
> > able to log on a lot.  If we can remove this way in which there *is*
> > such an advantage, we will (I believe) bring the game closer to what
> > it ought to be.
>
> Then perhaps we should limit the amount of messages people can send.
> Someone who can log on a lot can send many more messages than people who
> log on only once a turn. That makes unlimited, instant messaging an advantage
> that people who can log in a lot have over people who can only log in once a
> turn, or once a day.
>
> I am not convinced that removing these supposed advantages of people who
> can log in frequently is the correct path to take. I believe there are other areas
> that can produce a much greater positive effect in the game, that deserve more
> attention than this supposed problem of late-turn movers. (The not-yet-
> completed Duchy system being the prime example.)
>
>
> --
> Rob
>
> Useful conversions factors:
> 10 cards = 1 decacards
>
>
>
>
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He's got a point.  I've been in the game over a year and I don't think
late movements are a serious advantage because they are hard to pull
off on a large scale.  Most military thinkers just assume they can't
be sure one way or the other and calculate the risks.  Most of them
have given orders by the first two hours of the turn anyway.  I can
remember plenty of times when I planned on moving late and then
totally forgot to log in, and thus human inconsistency makes this a
unshaky ground to base a large military operation.

So long as people aren't punished for failing to log in at certain
times, I don't think this compromises light weight playing enough to
bother Tom with it.

The issue of judge/criminal logging races can be resolved by having
ransom's being paid at the end of the turn, and the criminal only asks
for the ransom when they log in, or something.

-- 
"Growth in wisdom may be exactly measured by decrease in bitterness"